My name is Princess Ferdos.

I am 28 years old.

And on September 22nd, 2016, I was supposed to die.

Not from an accident, not from illness, but because I read a book.

That book was the Bible, and it cost me everything I had ever known.

But Jesus had other plans for my life that day.

I was born the third daughter to a prince in Riyad, Saudi Arabia.

From the moment I took my first breath, I was surrounded by marble floors that gleamed like mirrors, gold fixtures that caught the desert sun streaming through massive windows, and an army of servants who attended to my every need before I even knew I had one.

My bedroom alone was larger than most people’s entire homes, adorned with silk tapestries from Persia and crystal chandeliers that cast rainbow patterns across handpainted ceiling murals.

I had everything money could buy, but I was trapped in a beautiful cage.

Every morning at dawn, the call to prayer would echo through the palace corridors.

I would rise from my bed of Egyptian cotton and position myself on my prayer rug, facing Mecca with perfect posture.

Five times daily, without fail, I would bow my face to the ground and recite the words I had memorized since childhood.

prayer, Quran study, royal etiquette training, charitable appearances at acceptable events.

This was my daily routine, as predictable as the desert sunrise.

By age 16, I had memorized 15 complete chapters of the Quran.

My tutors praised my devotion.

My father boasted about my spiritual discipline to other royal families, and I felt pride swell in my chest whenever religious leaders commended my dedication.

I participated in charity work, but only within the strict guidelines set by our family’s religious adviserss.

I could donate money to approved Islamic causes.

I could visit certain orphanages under heavy guard, but I was never allowed to truly connect with the suffering of others.

Everything was filtered through layers of protocol and religious law.

When I turned 20, father arranged my engagement to my cousin, another member of the royal family.

Our wedding was planned for 2017, and I accepted this arrangement without question because questioning was not permitted.

I thought righteousness came from following rules perfectly, from checking off every requirement on an invisible spiritual scorecard.

I believed that if I prayed enough, gave enough, and obeyed enough, Allah would be pleased with me.

But something was wrong.

Why did my heart feel empty when my life looked so full? During those long prayer sessions when I should have felt close to God, I felt nothing but emptiness.

The words felt mechanical, rehearsed, like I was reading from a script rather than speaking to a living deity.

I began having secret doubts about certain Islamic practices that seemed harsh or unfair.

But I pushed these thoughts down, convinced they were temptations from Satan.

Ask yourself this question.

Have you ever felt spiritually hungry even when you had everything? That knowing sensation that something crucial was missing from your soul, even when your external circumstances appeared perfect.

That was my reality every single day.

I lived in luxury while starving spiritually.

In January 2016, everything began to change when father hired an American literature professor to teach me advanced English.

He wanted me to be educated in western literature and culture, believing this would make me a more sophisticated representative of our family in international circles.

The professor was unlike any woman I had ever encountered.

She was quiet, respectful of our customs, but there was something different about her that I could not identify.

Where other tutors seemed nervous in our presence, constantly worried about offending royal protocol, the professor carried herself with unusual peace, she was kind to our servants in small ways that seemed automatic, natural, like kindness was simply part of who she was rather than a calculated gesture.

when one of the kitchen staff accidentally spilled tea during a lesson.

Instead of ignoring the incident, as most tutors would, she immediately helped clean it up and asked if the young woman was hurt.

This puzzled me.

In our culture, royalty does not concern itself with servant accidents.

I watched the professor carefully during our lessons.

She spoke about Shakespeare and Dickens with genuine passion, but more importantly, she treated everyone around her with the same consistent respect, regardless of their social position.

When she smiled, it reached her eyes in a way I had rarely seen among the adults in my life.

There was a light in her eyes I had never seen in any Muslim woman, a peace that seemed to come from somewhere deep within her soul.

Our lessons took place in the palace library surrounded by thousands of books in Arabic, English, and French.

She would arrive each morning carrying a worn leather satchel filled with teaching materials, and we would spend two hours discussing great works of literature.

During these conversations, I began to notice how she spoke about concepts like forgiveness, redemption, and sacrificial love.

These themes appeared frequently in the western books we studied, but she discussed them as if they were more than literary devices.

Month after month, I found myself looking forward to our lessons, not just for the intellectual stimulation, but for the atmosphere of peace that seemed to surround her.

In a palace filled with political tension, religious pressure, and family expectations, she represented something I had never experienced before.

I could not name what it was, but I knew I wanted whatever she possessed.

Little did I know that within a few months, this woman would inadvertently introduce me to the most dangerous and beautiful truth I would ever encounter.

A truth that would cost me my crown, my family, my homeland, and very nearly my life.

But first, I had to discover what made her so different from everyone else I had ever known.

In April 2016, I made the discovery that would change everything.

I was searching through the professor’s room for additional Shakespeare texts when my fingers found something unexpected.

Hidden in a false bottom of her leather suitcase was a book I had never seen before.

Bound in dark leather with gold lettering that spelled out two words, Holy Bible.

My hands shook like I was holding poison.

Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to drop the book immediately and report this woman to palace security.

Possessing a Bible in Saudi Arabia was not just forbidden, it was criminal.

As a member of the royal family, I had a duty to expose this violation of our most sacred laws.

But something held me back.

Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.

I made a decision that would haunt and bless me for the rest of my life.

I decided to examine this forbidden book before reporting it.

That night, after the palace grew quiet and the servants retired to their quarters, I lit a single lamp in my private chambers and opened the Bible to its first page.

I started with the Gospel of Matthew, expecting to find the corrupted lies about Jesus that my Islamic teachers had warned me about.

Instead, I found words that pierced straight through to my soul.

Jesus spoke about loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you.

He welcomed tax collectors, prostitutes, and outcasts, people my religion had taught me to despise or avoid.

He touched lepers when touching them was forbidden.

He defended an adulteress when the law demanded her death.

This Jesus loved people that my faith told me were unworthy of love.

Night after night, I returned to those pages.

I would wait until the palace settled into sleep, then carefully light my lamp and read by its flickering glow.

Each chapter revealed more about this man Jesus who claimed to be the son of God.

The more I read, the more confused I became.

This was not the Jesus I had been taught about in Islamic studies.

This Jesus was not simply a prophet pointing people toward God.

This Jesus claimed to be God himself.

The internal spiritual war that began raging inside me was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

Have you ever felt your entire world view crumbling underneath you? Have you ever discovered that everything you believed might be incomplete or even wrong? I would lie awake at night comparing Jesus’s words with verses from the Quran, trying to reconcile the differences, but the contradictions were impossible to ignore.

Jesus spoke of grace, of salvation as a gift rather than something earned through good works.

He claimed that no one could come to the father except through him.

He forgave sins with authority, something Islamic teaching said only Allah could do.

Yet this man, Jesus, did it freely immediately without requiring years of penance or perfect obedience.

By June, I could no longer contain my questions.

During our literature lessons, I began asking the professor careful inquiries about Christianity.

I disguised these questions as academic interest in Western religious themes found in the books we studied.

Her responses were gentle and patient, never pressuring me toward any particular belief, but simply explaining what Christians actually believed versus what I had been taught they believed.

For the first time in my life, someone told me that God’s love was not something I had to earn.

She explained that according to Christianity, God loved me completely not because of my prayers, my charity work, or my moral behavior, but simply because he had chosen to love me.

This concept was so foreign to my Islamic understanding that I initially rejected it as impossible.

Surely, God’s love had to be earned through righteous living.

But as weeks passed, something was changing inside me.

In July 2016, alone in my chambers, after another night of secret reading, I did something I had never done before.

I prayed to Jesus.

Not to Allah, not following the prescribed Islamic prayers I had memorized, but a simple, honest conversation with this man who claimed to be God.

I asked him if he was real, if he truly loved me, and if he could help me understand the truth.

The response was immediate and overwhelming.

I felt a peace descend upon me that was unlike anything I had ever experienced during years of Islamic prayer.

There was a presence in that room, a love that seemed to wrap around my soul like warm light.

I knew without doubt that Jesus was real and that he was listening to me.

This supernatural encounter began a transformation in my behavior that others quickly noticed.

I started treating our servants with genuine kindness rather than polite indifference.

I questioned certain royal privileges that seemed unfair or harsh.

During family dinners, I found myself asking uncomfortable questions about Islamic practices that had never bothered me before.

I was becoming someone I had never been allowed to be.

Father began noticing these changes in my attitude.

He questioned me about my reduced enthusiasm for our five daily prayers.

Where I had once participated with visible devotion, I now went through the motions mechanically, my heart no longer in the ritual.

He interrogated me about the American professor’s influence, wondering if Western ideas were corrupting my Islamic devotion.

I was walking on a tight rope and the ground was getting farther away every day.

Each morning I woke knowing that I was living a double life.

Outwardly I remained Princess Ferdos, beautiful Muslim daughter of a Saudi prince.

Inwardly I was becoming a follower of Jesus Christ, drawn to a love that was transforming me from the inside out.

I knew this deception could not continue forever, but I was not prepared for how violently it would end.

The growing suspicion from my family created an atmosphere of tension in the palace.

My changes were becoming too obvious to hide, and I knew that discovery was inevitable.

What I did not know was that when that discovery came, it would cost me everything I had ever known and very nearly my life.

September 19th, 2016 began like any other morning in the palace.

I performed my dawn prayers mechanically, ate breakfast in the formal dining hall with my mother and sister, and prepared for another day of maintaining the facade that was slowly killing my soul.

I had no idea that within hours my secret would be exposed and my life would hang in the balance.

The palace security conducted routine inspections of royal quarters every few months.

A standard protocol designed to ensure our safety and maintain protocol standards.

I had hidden the Bible in a false bottom compartment of my jewelry box, a secret space I had discovered years earlier and used to hide childhood treasures.

I thought it was the perfect hiding place.

I was wrong.

At precisely 2:00 in the afternoon, while I was attending a family meeting about wedding preparations, three security officers entered my chambers for their inspection.

They examined my wardrobe, checked behind furniture for security threats, and methodically went through my personal belongings.

When they opened my jewelry box, and noticed the slight difference in depth, they discovered the hidden compartment.

The moment they pulled that Bible from its hiding place, everything changed.

In one instant, I went from princess to prisoner.

The head security officer immediately radioed for backup and sealed my chambers.

Within minutes, armed guards surrounded me as I returned from the family meeting, and I was placed under immediate arrest.

The confrontation with father took place in the palace throne room.

That massive hall where he conducted official business and received foreign dignitaries.

The marble columns seemed to tower over me like judgment pillars as I stood before his ornate chair, flanked by guards who had served my family faithfully for decades.

The Bible lay on a small table between us, looking both innocent and explosive at the same time.

Father’s rage was terrifying, but his heartbreak was worse.

I had seen him angry before during political disputes or business negotiations, but I had never seen him look at me with such a mixture of fury and devastation.

His voice shook as he spoke, alternating between shouting and whispers that were somehow more frightening than his loudest roars.

“You have dishonored Allah, our family and our bloodline,” he declared, rising from his throne to pace back and forth like a caged lion.

“28 years I have invested in raising you to be a model Muslim princess.

28 years of education, training, and preparation for you to serve Allah and represent our family with honor.

And you throw it all away for this cursed book of lies.

But then I saw something that broke my heart more than his anger ever could.

Tears began forming in his eyes.

Tears that he tried desperately to hide but could not contain.

This powerful man who commanded respect from world leaders was crying because his daughter had betrayed everything he held sacred.

In that moment, I realized that my spiritual journey had become his worst nightmare.

He made one final plea, his voice cracking with emotion.

Renounce this madness and burn that cursed book.

Tell me this was temporary insanity.

A moment of curiosity that means nothing.

Promise me you will return to Islam and never speak of this again and we can forget this ever happened.

The silence in that throne room was deafening.

Every person present knew that my answer would determine my fate.

I looked at this man who had given me life, who had loved me despite my gender in a culture that preferred sons, who had provided me with every luxury and opportunity imaginable.

Then I looked at the Bible, that simple book that had introduced me to a love greater than any earthly father could provide.

I cannot deny the truth that has set me free, I said quietly, but clearly enough for everyone to hear.

The formal trial before the Islamic Religious Council took place the following day.

I was brought before five elderly clerics who had studied Islamic law their entire lives.

These men were not cruel or evil.

They were simply following the religious laws they believed Allah had commanded.

The charges against me were apostasy and corrupting the royal bloodline.

Both punishable by death under Saudi interpretation of Islamic law.

Imagine standing before judges who see your faith as a crime punishable by death.

Picture yourself in a room where the very thing that has brought you peace and purpose is viewed as the most dangerous poison imaginable.

The evidence against me was overwhelming.

Servants testified about changes in my behavior, my reduced enthusiasm for Islamic prayers, and my suspicious questions about religious practices.

The testimony from palace staff was particularly damaging.

The young woman who cleaned my chambers spoke about finding me awake at unusual hours, sitting by my window with a lamp burning long past midnight.

The kitchen staff mentioned my new kindness toward them, treating them more like family members than servants.

Even these positive changes were presented as evidence that foreign influence had corrupted my Islamic character.

The religious council offered me one final opportunity to recant and return to Islam.

The terms were non-negotiable.

I must publicly burn the Bible, renounce Christianity completely, and undergo intensive Islamic re-education under the supervision of religious scholars.

In exchange, they would commute my death sentence to permanent house arrest and cancellation of my engagement.

I sat in that courtroom surrounded by men who genuinely believed they were saving my soul from eternal damnation.

They could not understand how I could choose death over returning to the faith of my fathers.

To them, my decision seemed like madness, rebellion, or foreign brainwashing rather than sincere spiritual conviction.

When I refused their offer of clemency, the death sentence was pronounced with solemn regret rather than anger.

These religious leaders took no pleasure in condemning a young princess to death, but they believed Islamic law required this ultimate punishment for apostasy.

The execution was scheduled for September 22nd, just 3 days away.

Those three final days in the palace dungeon were the longest of my life.

Every hour that passed brought me closer to meeting Jesus face to face, but I was still terrified of dying so young and so violently.

Family members visited to make final pleas for me to change my mind.

But each conversation only confirmed that the gap between my old life and new faith was impossible to bridge.

September 21st, 2016 was supposed to be my final night on earth.

I sat alone in the palace dungeon, a stone chamber beneath the main building that had been used for centuries to hold prisoners awaiting judgment.

The walls were thick limestone blocks that kept the desert heat at bay during the day, but turned cold and damp when the sun disappeared.

A single barred window near the ceiling allowed me to see a small square of night sky dotted with stars that seemed impossibly distant.

The guards had removed everything from my cell except a thin mattress, a water pitcher, and a prayer rug that I had not touched since my arrest.

They expected me to spend my final hours in Islamic prayer, seeking Allah’s forgiveness for my apostasy.

Instead, I found myself talking to Jesus in the most honest conversation I had ever had with anyone, human or divine.

Jesus,” I whispered into the darkness.

“If you’re real, if you truly love me the way the Bible says you do, please don’t let me die for nothing.

I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m terrified that my life will have meant nothing.

Show me that choosing you was worth losing everything else.

” What happened next defied every natural law I understood.

A supernatural piece began descending upon me like warm oil being poured over my head.

It started at the crown of my skull and slowly spread down through my entire body until even my fingertips tingled with an inexplicable sense of calm.

I felt arms around me that weren’t there physically, but were more real than anything I had ever experienced in my life.

The presence in that cell was so tangible.

I looked around, expecting to see someone standing in the shadows.

But I was alone, yet not alone.

There was love in that dungeon that seemed to fill every stone, every corner, every molecule of air I breathed.

It was the kind of love I had searched for my entire life without knowing what I was searching for.

Around 3:00 in the morning, exhaustion finally overtook my anxiety and I drifted into sleep.

What happened during those sleeping hours changed everything.

I experienced either a vivid dream or a supernatural vision.

And to this day, I cannot tell you the difference.

All I know is that Jesus appeared to me as clearly as if he were standing in broad daylight.

He looked exactly as I had imagined him while reading the Gospels.

But seeing him face to face was overwhelming in ways no imagination could have prepared me for.

His eyes held depths of love that seemed infinite.

And when he smiled at me, I felt like I was seeing the source of all joy in the universe.

But what struck me most were the scars in his hands and feet, visible reminders of the price he had paid for people like me.

My daughter, he said, and his voice was like music and thunder combined, gentle yet powerful enough to shake mountains.

Your faith has saved you.

Watch what I will do.

I wanted to ask him a thousand questions, to fall at his feet and worship, to tell him how sorry I was for the years I had spent following the wrong path.

But before I could speak, he reached out and touched my forehead with his scarred hand, and I felt love flow through me that was so pure and complete, it made every earthly love I had ever known seem like a shadow.

“Do not be afraid,” he continued.

“I have plans for your life that are greater than anything you have lost.

Trust me completely and watch me work.

” When I awakened, the cell was filled with ordinary darkness again, but the peace remained.

I knew with absolute certainty that dying was not the end of my story.

God was about to intervene in ways I could never have imagined or orchestrated myself.

Even before dawn broke, signs and wonders began manifesting around the palace.

A massive sandstorm was approaching Riyad from the west.

an unusual weather pattern for that time of year.

The meteorologists on the palace staff were baffled by its sudden formation and unexpected trajectory.

Palace security began making preparations to protect important guests and dignitaries who were scheduled to attend my execution.

International news crews had arrived in the capital for an unrelated story about Saudi economic reforms, but their presence created additional security concerns for palace officials.

Having foreign media in the vicinity during a royal family execution was considered a potential diplomatic embarrassment that no one had anticipated when planning my death.

The most significant disruption came when the key security guard responsible for execution procedures fell mysteriously ill during the night.

This man had overseen royal punishments for 15 years and knew the precise protocols required for carrying out death sentences.

His sudden fever and inability to perform his duties created a bureaucratic complication that delayed the morning proceedings.

Do you believe in coincidences or do you believe in God’s perfect timing? As I sat in that cell listening to the growing chaos above me, I began to understand that Jesus was moving pieces on a chessboard I couldn’t even see.

Each accident and unexpected development was part of a divine strategy to save my life.

Father received an urgent business call around sunrise requiring his immediate attention for a oil contract negotiation with European representatives.

The timing could not have been worse from his perspective as royal protocol required his presence to authorize my execution.

The phone call created a scheduling conflict that forced palace officials to consider postponing the death sentence.

The sandstorm grew stronger throughout the morning, creating visibility problems and safety concerns for anyone traveling to or from the palace.

The religious leader scheduled to oversee my execution, called to report that his own granddaughter had been rushed to the hospital, requiring him to choose between family obligations and official duties.

God was orchestrating a symphony of divine intervention while I sat in peaceful anticipation in my stone cell.

Every complication, every delay, every unfortunate coincidence was actually the hand of Almighty God reaching down into human circumstances to rescue his daughter.

I could feel his presence growing stronger with each passing hour, and I knew that my deliverance was at hand.

The sandstorm that hit Riyad on the morning of September 22nd, 2016 was unlike anything the palace meteorologists had predicted.

What began as distant clouds on the horizon transformed into a wall of sand and wind that turned day into twilight and created chaos throughout the capital city.

Sometimes God uses storms to clear the path to freedom and I was about to witness this truth firsthand.

By 8:00 in the morning, when my execution should have begun, the palace was in complete disarray.

The storm had knocked out power to several sections of the building.

Security cameras were malfunctioning due to sand interference and the carefully planned ceremonial procedures were falling apart one crisis at a time.

Palace officials were so focused on protecting important dignitaries and maintaining basic operations that my execution became a secondary concern.

It was during this chaos that I received an unexpected visitor in my cell.

A servant woman I had known for years, someone who had cleaned the royal quarters and served meals in respectful silence, unlocked my door and stepped inside.

I had never paid much attention to her before my conversion, seeing her only as part of the palace furniture.

But now, looking into her eyes, I saw something that took my breath away.

Princess Ferdos,” she whispered, glancing nervously towards the corridor.

“I have been a follower of Jesus for three years.

There are more of us than you know, hidden throughout the palace, praying in secret, and waiting for God to move.

Today is that day.

” I stared at her in absolute amazement.

This woman had been walking through our halls, serving our family, and following Christ right under our noses.

Her courage in revealing herself at this moment was staggering, because helping me escape would certainly mean her own death if we were caught.

“We have been praying for you since your arrest,” she continued, producing a servant’s robe and head, covering from beneath her own garments.

“God has shown us that your life is not meant to end today.

There is a plan to get you out of the palace, but you must trust us completely and follow exactly where we lead you.

Can you imagine the courage it took for these people to risk their lives for mine? This woman and others like her had everything to lose and nothing to gain by helping a condemned princess escape.

They were risking not just their own lives but the lives of their families, their children, their elderly parents who depended on palace employment for survival.

Yet their love for Jesus compelled them to act with a bravery that humbled me completely.

The escape plan was more sophisticated than I could have imagined.

There was indeed a network of secret Christian converts among the palace staff, people who had been quietly following Jesus while maintaining their public Islamic identity out of necessity.

They had been meeting in hidden corners of the vast palace complex, praying together, sharing contraband Bibles, and supporting each other through the isolation of secret faith.

The loyal servant led me through passages I had never known existed.

Ancient tunnels that connected the dungeon to the kitchen areas and service corridors.

These tunnels had been built centuries ago to allow servants to move throughout the palace without being seen by royalty or guests.

Today they would serve as my highway to freedom.

As we moved through the darkness, guided only by a small flashlight, she explained the rest of their plan.

A network of safe houses had been established, leading from Riyad to the Jordanian border, each one staffed by Christians who understood the cost of helping religious refugees escape.

Transportation had been arranged using vehicles that would blend into normal traffic.

Drivers who knew back roads that avoided military checkpoints and timing coordinated to take advantage of the storm’s disruption.

The most dangerous part of the escape would be leaving the palace grounds without being detected.

Palace security was focused on the storm damage and protecting visiting dignitaries.

But there were still guards at every exit, cameras at every gate, and procedures that had to be followed for anyone entering or leaving the property.

I was disguised as a servant woman in full covering with documents identifying me as a kitchen worker being sent to purchase emergency supplies due to storm shortages.

The servant who had rescued me coached me on how to walk differently, how to keep my eyes down in the submissive manner expected of palace staff, and how to speak in the accent and vocabulary of someone from a lower social class.

My heart was pounding so hard I was certain everyone could hear it as we approached the service entrance.

The guard on duty was a man I had seen hundreds of times, but never really noticed.

He looked tired and irritated by the storm complications, checking documents with the mechanical boredom of someone performing routine tasks during a crisis situation.

“Where are you going in this weather?” he asked the servant accompanying me, barely glancing at our paperwork.

“Emergency food supplies,” she replied calmly.

“The storm damaged the delivery trucks and the kitchen is running short for tonight’s dinner service.

” He waved us through without further questions.

His attention already focused on the next problem demanding his attention.

Just like that, I walked out of the palace where I had lived my entire life, disguised as the kind of person I had barely acknowledged for 28 years.

The moment we stepped outside the palace walls, I felt a mixture of terror and exhilaration that defied description.

The sandstorm provided perfect cover for our movements, reducing visibility to just a few meters and keeping most people indoors.

We hurried toward a nondescript car parked two blocks away, where another member of the underground Christian network waited to begin the next phase of my journey to freedom.

As I climbed into that car and we drove away from the only home I had ever known, I turned for one last look at the palace towers disappearing into the sandfilled sky.

I was leaving behind my family, my wealth, my status, my homeland, and everything that had defined my identity since birth.

I was free, but I had lost everything I had ever known.

The cost of following Jesus was higher than I had imagined when I first opened that forbidden Bible.

But as we drove through the storm toward an uncertain future, I felt Jesus’s presence with me more powerfully than ever before.

I had traded a palace for a refugee’s life.

But I had gained something infinitely more valuable than anything I was leaving behind.

The journey to freedom took 18 hours of heartpounding travel through back roads, desert routes, and small towns where strangers risked their lives to help a Saudi princess they had never met.

Each safe house along the way was run by Christians who understood the cost of religious conviction.

People who had either escaped persecution themselves or dedicated their lives to helping others find freedom.

When we finally crossed into Jordan at dawn, I collapsed to my knees on free soil and wept tears of gratitude and grief combined.

The Christian missionary safe house in Aman became my refuge and my birthplace simultaneously.

For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who loved Jesus openly without fear, without pretense, without the need to hide their faith behind careful words and secret meetings.

The missionaries who welcomed me had been doing this work for decades, helping religious refugees from across the Middle East find safety, healing, and new purpose.

Freedom was scarier than I thought it would be.

In the palace, every decision had been made for me by protocol, tradition, or father’s direct commands.

Now I faced choices I had never imagined.

What to wear, what to eat, how to spend my day, where to live, how to earn money.

The western world that had seemed so fascinating during literature lessons now felt overwhelming and alien.

When I had to navigate it alone, I had to learn basic life skills that servants had always handled for me.

Cooking was a mystery that resulted in burned meals and kitchen disasters.

Cleaning required techniques I had never observed, much less practiced.

Working for wages was a concept I understood intellectually, but had never experienced personally.

The woman who had been served by dozens of palace staff now struggled to wash her own clothes and prepare simple meals.

But far more challenging than learning practical skills was adjusting to life without the identity that had defined me since birth.

Princess Fir had ceased to exist the moment I stepped out of the palace.

I was now simply a refugee woman with no family, no country, no wealth, and no social status.

The mirror reflected a stranger’s face, someone I was still learning to recognize and accept.

3 weeks after my escape, I experienced the most beautiful and terrifying moment of my new life.

The missionaries arranged for my baptism in the Jordan River, the same waters where Jesus himself had been baptized 2,000 years earlier.

As I stood waist deep in that ancient river, surrounded by people who had become my new family, I understood that I was about to die and be reborn in the most literal way possible.

The moment I went under that water, Princess Ferdos died completely.

every trace of my royal identity, my Islamic upbringing, my cultural conditioning, and my old way of seeing the world was buried beneath the surface of that sacred river when I emerged gasping and laughing and crying all at once, a daughter of the King of Kings was born.

Not a princess of Saudi Arabia, but royalty in God’s eternal kingdom.

The missionaries helped me understand that God had not rescued me from execution simply so I could live a quiet, comfortable life in hiding.

My escape had been miraculous, but miracles are never random acts of divine favoritism.

God always has purposes that extend far beyond our immediate circumstances.

My freedom came with a calling that would define the rest of my life.

Within months, I discovered my divine purpose, ministering to other Muslim women who were seeking truth about Jesus.

My story began spreading through underground Christian networks across the Middle East, reaching women who faced similar choices between family loyalty and spiritual conviction.

They needed to hear from someone who understood their cultural background, their religious training, and the devastating cost of choosing Christ over comfort.

The underground network that had saved my life became my ministry platform.

We developed careful communication systems to reach women in restrictive Islamic countries, providing them with access to Bibles, Christian literature, and safe communication with other believers.

Most importantly, we offered escape routes for those whose lives were threatened because of their faith.

Each woman we helped reminded me that religious persecution was not an abstract theological concept but a daily reality for millions of people worldwide.

While Western Christians debated which church to attend or which translation of the Bible to prefer, our sisters in restricted nations died for the chance to attend any church or read any version of God’s word.

Statistics about Christian persecution became personal stories with names and faces.

Fatima, whose husband beat her when he discovered her secret prayers to Jesus.

Aisha, whose family disowned her for refusing an arranged marriage, to a man who would force her back into strict Islamic observance.

Mariam, whose children were taken away because authorities declared her an unfit mother due to her Christian conversion.

Look into your own heart right now and ask yourself this question.

What is Jesus calling you to sacrifice for his kingdom? Not everyone is called to lose their family, homeland, and inheritance like I did.

But every genuine follower of Christ is called to count the cost and decide whether following him is worth whatever price he asks us to pay.

My message to churches in free countries is both simple and challenging.

While you debate denominational differences and argue about worship styles, your brothers and sisters around the world are dying for the privilege you take for granted.

While you complain about early morning services or uncomfortable chairs, others risk their lives for the chance to worship openly just once.

I speak at churches now sharing my testimony and challenging Western Christians to examine their commitment level.

Jesus didn’t just save me from execution.

He saved me from spiritual death and eternal separation from God, but he also saved me for a purpose that gives meaning to every loss I endured.

The next time you hold a Bible in your hands, remember Princess Ferdos and remember those who died for that privilege.

Don’t waste the gift of freedom that cost others everything.

Don’t take for granted the salvation that Jesus purchased with his own blood and that countless martyrs have protected with theirs.

Maybe you think your situation is too difficult for God to handle.

Maybe you believe he can’t reach you where you are, can’t change your circumstances, can’t use your life for his glory.

I’m here to tell you that he can reach a Saudi princess in a palace dungeon scheduled for execution.

He can reach you too.

Wherever you are, whatever you’re facing, Jesus turns our endings into beginnings.

He transforms our greatest losses into our greatest victories.

That’s what he did for me and that’s what he wants to do for